U.S. senators are forging ahead on a bipartisan plan to avert a government shutdown in October rather than following House Republicans’ lead.
Unlike the House-passed continuing resolution, which simply freezes government funding across agencies at current levels, the Senate’s continuing resolution additionally adjusts funding for certain programs until Dec. 11, when the CR would expire.
Senators will vote Monday to advance the CR, with hopes of voting on final passage before lawmakers leave town for their month-long August recess.
“It’s good that we were able to produce a much-improved CR to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown that no one wants,” Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., stated. “This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not.”
The Senate’s CR slightly boosts funding for SNAP, FEMA disaster relief, wildfire management, U.S. Navy shipbuilding, small business loans, and multiple federal housing programs to meet expected demand through Dec. 11.
It also extends some programs and grants set to run out of funding on Oct. 1, the end of fiscal 2026. Those include the Food for Peace program and other foreign aid; highway infrastructure and surface transportation programs; the National Flood Insurance Program; and certain veterans’ health care and economic support programs; among other things.
As additional Democratic sweeteners to ease Senate passage, the bill temporarily prohibits the Office of Management and Budget from tasking political appointees with decisions about grant awards and prevents any new funding – including cross-agency funding transfers – to immigration enforcement agencies.
“As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to craft this stopgap funding measure,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, stated.
“This measure gives Congress the time we need to continue our work on bipartisan appropriations bills, which are always my strong preference for handling annual government funding,” Collins added. “[T]his CR is a major step toward averting a damaging shutdown that only harms vital programs and federal workers.”
Though Congress is supposed to renew and update funding levels for all federal agencies via 12 annual appropriations bills, it rarely does so on time. Currently, not a single fiscal year 2027 appropriations bill has passed both chambers.
Lawmakers usually pass at least a short-term funding stopgap to buy more time, sometimes passing multiple to cover an entire year, as they did for fiscal year 2025.
The 119th Congress has weathered two record-long government shutdowns during the current fiscal year due to Senate Democrats twice tanking CRs over health care and immigration policy demands, respectively.
